The Gold Child
by darcyfarrow
Summary: Spoiler alert: this story's based on the promo for 2.15. The seer's prophecy comes true as Henry becomes the Dark One's undoing.


In the three seconds before Hook plants my dagger into my chest, I raise my cane face-high. I will break his nose first, as a distraction, and then bring him to the tiles with a blow to the nether region, and after that, I'll make a smorgasbord of my beatings: a little here, a little there.

He's grinning. It's a grin I've worn many a time myself, not a grin of the anticipation of long-withheld satisfaction, as Emma probably interprets it, but a grin of surrender. Surrender to the miasma of rage, pain, insult and impulse for destruction—destruction of the self as well as the enemy; surrender to the one power greater than my own: death. In those days, however, I was surrendering my will to Death; my own life was never in danger. It's different now.

His grin abruptly disappears. One last time he's underestimated me; one last time I surprise him and myself. As I toss my cane away, hear it clatter and roll across the tiles; as my dagger—in three seconds, its ownership will pass to Hook, though perhaps, in this City without Magic, he will escape the curse that comes with the dagger—as my dagger plunges home, shock followed by profound dismay crosses his face. He will have my death, exactly as he wished, but I have denied him the enjoyment of it. "Why?" The word escapes him like air from a tire.

Or perhaps it's the air that's escaping from my lungs. I wouldn't answer his question if I could, but I can't speak now; my body is flattening, becoming two-dimensional as I slide to the floor, striking my arm and my head against the iron gate that locks me out from Bae's apartment.

I can't tell anyone: It was the child. The child who's now frantically buzzing his father's apartment, shouting into the intercom. The child who is my grandchild. Whatever he will choose to call himself tomorrow—Mills or Swan or Cassidy—he's a Gold.

I love him too much to make him witness to a killing, whether it's Hook's or my own. Five minutes ago when Bae announced (prophetically?) that he would never see me again and threw me out of his home, I thought I had nothing to live for. For three hundred years, Bae had been my destination. For a hundred years, Belle had been the star that lit my dark path. Without them, I am truly dust. Five minutes ago, I would have fought back only out of instinct, for I had no wish to defend my life any more. But when Hook emerged from the shadowed hallway of the building in which my son lives, when he brushed past Emma and knocked Henry over in his rush to attack me, it wasn't Hook I saw: it was Henry.

I will make damn sure he doesn't witness a killing. My grandson deserves his innocence. I owe him his innocence, having destroyed his father's with my cowardice, having destroyed his mother's with my scheming. And so I throw my cane away and accept the dagger. I will not, however, accept my death, because my grandson also deserves a grandpapa.

Hook runs. Perhaps he thinks he can outrun the law: perhaps he can. I suppose stabbings are an hourly occurrence here, nothing for the police to get excited about. Perhaps he will escape to Storybrooke and Cora will take him back to Neverland. There's one thing he can't escape. Already the dagger, still buried in my chest, is changing; I can feel it, though how it holds its magic in this City without Magic, I can't guess. My chest heaves as one lung collapses, blood bubbling into my throat and out my nose, blood watering my silk shirt and suit jacket. My chest heaves and the dagger falls into my lap and already the blade reads "Killian Jones."

I'm dead. So says the dagger.

Emma is shouting into the phone and the gate behind me jerks open and I fall backwards, into my son's arms. The ocean roars in my ears and I can't hear what anyone is saying, only the blood gurgling in my throat and the air seeping from the hole in my lung. Emma drops her phone into her jacket and picks up my legs as my son raises me by the shoulders, and as my grandson runs ahead to open doors for us to pass through. I am not panicked, though Emma and Bae are; I try to speak to them, to reassure them that daggers can be deceiving, that in my grandson's eyes the truth can be read, and those eyes say I can live, if I choose.

I've had three hundred years of stupid choices. Let this be the first step toward wisdom: I will listen to my grandson as he pleads with me to hang on. "You have to. You have to finish the stories. You have to teach me." Yes. I have to. All the more, I have to, because of all the things I was supposed to give his father and failed to. I understand it now: what's done cannot be undone. I can't give Bae his childhood back, but I can make sure Henry gets his childhood. As his father and mother struggle to work out their relationship to each other and to him, as they figure out what place in his life to give Regina, if any, as they come to terms with the utterly bizarre reality in which Emma's mother and father are the same age as she—as all that maelstrom swirls around this strange family, I, the only grandparent who looks like a grandparent, must be Henry's anchor.

It's been a very long time since anyone needed me. By damn, I won't screw it up this time.

Henry picks up the dagger and pockets it.

As Emma and Bae lay me on his couch and Bae opens my shirt to expose the wound, as he stuffs under my head a cushion embroidered with "I heart NY," Henry sits down by my feet and clutches my hand, the one upon which I wear the ring. Emma gets back on the phone; I can't hear her. Bae crouches beside me, his eyes wild; he shouts at Emma, "What are they sayin'? What do I do?"

It doesn't matter, I want to tell him, but I can't talk through the blood. I want to tell him, don't waste these seconds—we don't know how many are left. Let's use this moment for the only thing that matters, so that if I live, we can start with a clean slate, and if I die, you can move on without the burden of guilt. I try to form the words.

No sound comes out, but he hears me nevertheless. "I'm sorry too, Papa. I'm so sorry, I've been a jerk, stupid, hurting myself just as much as I hurt you. I forgive you everything. Will you forgive me?"

I pull up enough energy to squeeze his hand, and he understands that too. He assures me, "I love you too, always have." His face scrunches, a mirror of the pain burning through my body; I'd tell him if I could that I'm no longer feeling the pain, though I know it's there: the magic of the mind has taken over. My throat clears for just a second, long enough for one word, so I make it my best one: not _sorry_, not _forgive_; if this is to be my last word, let it be one that will cleanse the wounds: "Love."

Emma relays some instruction from Emergency Services, and Bae promises, "I'll be right back, Papa" before he runs off. That leaves Henry and me.

"It's gonna be okay," Henry says, and I nod. "Grandpa."

I want him to have something from me, just in case. As he squeezes my hand, I know what I want to give him. I pull off the ring that I've worn every day of my life as Gold, a ring that I'd hidden in my prison cell in the last days in the Enchanted Forest. It's not special to anyone but me: it contains no magic, so in all these years it's never attracted Regina's notice, and it contains no monetary worth, so it's never attracted anyone else's notice. But it matters, as the cup and the shawl matter. I brought it to this world to help me remember, even while the curse fogged my mind. I'd bought this ring a hundred years before the curse, during a visit to the Shangri-la marketplace, after I'd completed a profitable deal. . .and before I fell victim to my own paranoia and threw Belle out of the Dark Castle, out of my life.

I'd bought that ring in a moment of uncharacteristic optimism and boldness, with the intention of offering it, one day, as her wedding ring.

I press the ring into Henry's hand. "Thank you," he says, and his resolve cracks; he brushes his face with his sleeve. I'd give him my handkerchief for his runny nose but it's bloody now. I don't have the strength to raise my hand, anyway.

Whatever comes next, I can accept now. My life's journey has reached its destination. If I live, it will be to start a new journey, taking care of my family. If I don't survive, they will take care of Belle. She will never have her past restored, but she can fashion a new identity for herself, with their support.

The ring is much too big, so Henry slips it into his pocket. And then he looks at me with such pure affection and respect that I feel I've come full circle, for his father at age eleven looked at me exactly the same way. I look into his eyes, hoping my own eyes are communicating what my voice can't: I'm proud to have known him these eleven years, I'm confident he'll grow into a fine man, and in the thirty minutes or so that I've been his grandfather (and in those eleven years before), I've come to love him.

And then I blink because his eyes have changed color. The eyes that were a minute ago puppyish and brown are now—unhuman and gold. As mine were, when I was the most powerful mage in the world.

What magic is this? Panic surges from my belly: is it fairy magic he and his mother inherited from some unknown ancestor? Is it dark magic, carried through me?

_He will be your undoing. _

_Then I'll just have to kill him._

Gods help us that Henry's magic didn't come from me. Let him have inherited from me nothing more than his unruly shock of hair.

"It's all right," he assures me again. His mother and father are distracted elsewhere, so they don't see him raise his hands. They don't see the shimmering, glowing purple light emanating from those little hands. They don't see the hands come to rest on my chest, becoming slick with my blood. The hands glow brighter, the heat from them chasing away the chill I feel creeping in from my legs and arms toward my center. And then his hands press in, pass through the flesh and bone, and I feel the warmth within me now, I feel my heartbeat slow, taking on a steadier rhythm. The bleeding stops, the blood dries, my throat clears, and I can breathe.

My gods. The boy has more raw magic in his little finger than Regina has in her entire hand. He could easily someday be as powerful as Cora.

_Cora_. So wrapped up in my grief for Belle and my anticipation of finding Bae, I'd brushed all thoughts of her aside. I didn't care, I told myself, what she did, who she tormented, as long as she didn't get in my way. I was certain she, unlike her daughter, was smart enough to leave Belle alone, because she didn't want a war with me. Her offer of the globe put a quick severance to any concern I might have had for the rest of Storybrooke. Besides, it seemed certain her only concern was Regina, and what did I care for the Evil Queen? Let her mother finish what the wraith had started.

Blind, I was. Revenge upon Regina is just the pre-game warm-up: Henry is the trophy Cora is after. This boy whose power will one day exceed hers.

It cannot stand. The remnants of magic still in my body call out to the magic in his hands, asking for more, asking for his strength. _Let me live_.

His magic answers, reaching out from his fingers, seeking and testing each organ of my body, mending what's torn, taking away the pain. I feel it flow like a sweet mountain stream up to my heart. And here Henry hesitates. He watches me closely and I smile to let him know I'm better already. "I feel something. . . something evil, tied up around your heart, like barbed wire."

"The Dark Curse," I explain. Some of it I shed when I came to the Land without Magic, but not all. By no means. Enough remained that I'm still a monster.

And then he says something that makes me gasp. In the voice of a child, in the words of a centuries-old mage, Henry offers, "I can take it from you. I can heal you."

How does he know what to do? He's completely untried, untrained; it took me years to gain control of my magic, yet he seems to have been born with the Knowledge. But I shake my head. "Dangerous—it could take a hold of you."

"No," he insists. He's so calm, so sure. "I can break it." And then he's an eleven-year-old again: "Please let me, Grandpa."

I am lost. I nod and lie back on the cushion.

Time seems to slow down around the two of us. Out there, Emma and Bae rush about in the few minutes that have passed since the attack, but here, it seems like hours have gone by. Lifetimes, perhaps. My body is healed and the pain is gone, still Henry's magic spreads a comforting warmth through me before he begins his work. His gold eyes close as he concentrates. One tentacle of magic prods gently at the outermost coil of the curse until it finds the frayed end and pulls. I feel no pain as the barbs pluck at my heart and one by one are drawn away. One coil is gone, then another, and my heart beats more slowly. A third, a fourth, and the barbs leave little bleeding holes as they pull away, but Henry's magic comes in behind as a balm. A fifth, a sixth and I feel my heart expanding in my chest, pressure lifting. As the thirteenth coil snaps, I feel a rush of blood to my head and pinpoints of light prickle before my eyes.

I'm being nudged. My name, my Storybrooke name, is being called. The magic withdraws as Henry's hands withdraw from my chest. I open my eyes.

"Gold?" Poor Emma, I think; she's had one too many weird occurrences for one day. "Gold, are you—" she doesn't finish her question.

Bae is standing beside her, damp dishtowels in his hands. He meant to treat my wound, I suppose, but the towels will be useful just the same, to wipe off the dried blood from my chest and Henry's hands. "What—" Bae stutters. "What did you do?"

Henry and I exchange a glance, but we're both exhausted. Later, we will explain, and perhaps much later, Bae and Emma will learn to perceive magic as just a tool; the evil is in the wielder, and so, in Henry's case, is the good. It will be an uphill climb to get those two to believe, but they will have to, eventually, because Henry's magic is too strong to be denied.

And there's so much good he can do with it.

"Cora," I manage to get out. "It's him she's come for, not Regina. The Gold Child."

Bae knows what I'm talking about. In the old country, among the hill people there was a legend that one day, a Gold Child would be born, the child of the child of Darkness, but conceived by True Love; this child would bring to the world the full powers of both. Cora talked sometimes about this legend, when she and I were still on speaking terms. She believed her daughter could be the parent of that child. She was being silly, I scoffed, but I meant _egotistical_. The hill people also had a legend of a talking, boot-wearing cat; did she believe that too?

Bae licks his lips nervously. It's his turn to choose; if his old man can make a wise decision, so can he. He glances at Emma, then he turns his gaze upon Henry. "We'll protect him." His hand reaches out tentatively, crossing the gap halfway, and Emma's hand comes to join him. I don't know if my son and the mother of my grandson will come together for each other as they did once, but they will come together for Henry.

And Grandpa's going to be right there beside them. Yeah, both grandpas and the grandma. Let Cora come.

* * *

**A/N. In the promo for "The Queen is Dead," it looks like Hook stabs Gold with his hook, but I took the liberty of changing that. The thought of Hook killing the Dark One with his own dagger was just too delicious to pass up. And imagine the story possibilities if Hook became the new Dark One. . . .**


End file.
